like if you have a non-human People in your fantasy story, when you introduce them I should be expected to know nothing about them, right? Like if you say, "this is a People in my completely made up world," there should be required followup to actually introduce the reader to that People, right? And to the context of how they exist in your world?
if a story says, "These are the Elves," but it doesn't have to really get into depth about What Elves Are, Who they Are, what languages they speak, what religions they do (or don't) have, how long-lived they are, what weapons (if any) they use, what music they play, how they dress, etc. etc.
because I as the reader am assumed to already know all of those things based on Elves from other media,
then those aren't really your made up Peoples and characters, right? Those are fan characters of Elves from other stories.
Like???
I think at this point if someone says "there are Elves in my story," it's considered fair to assume the reader will Know that the Elves are long-lived, likely the longest-lived in the world, capable of magic, have pointed ears, skilled archers, speak an 'Elvish' language, etc.
And well I don't agree with that assumption. I think you should have to define what it means to be an Elf in your story. Not assume that your readers have engaged with Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons or The Witcher or whatever and basically say, "yeah my Elves are like those ones. You understand."
Like yes. Many of the archetypes and tropes assigned to Elves came from folklore and mythology, which is great. But people seem to think Elves as they're presented in Lord of the Rings and subsequent stories are a 1:1 to their folkloric inspirations, and therefore do not need to be expanded upon, which is simply not the case. They're like, 'oh I don't need to switch up the Elves because Elves come from folklore.' Okay well Legolas isn't actually exactly the man as you'd find in the stories which inspired his character.
Idk sometimes I feel nuts because it's like, if I wrote a scifi story and was like 'oh and there's Vulcans and Klingons in this by the way,' people would be like, 'oh. so does this take place in the Star Trek universe?' and I said, "huh? no. this is my completely made up, original scifi universe. But there's Vulcans and Kilingons.' And then people said, 'okay...can you tell us about them?' And I was like, 'Well you Know. They're like most Vulcans and Klingons. I changed a few things up for fun but they're your basic Vulcans and Klingons,'
everyone would be like, 'Okay. So those are from Star Trek!!!'
But throw a literal Hobbit into your fantasy story and that's fine. That's just a type of guy. You don't need to explain him at all, everyone should know.
I get the point, but "elves" have been around since at least the tenth century, spanning multiple cultures (and even blending conceptually with fairies, dwarves, gnomes..), they have a firm, if fluid, place in public consciousness. Races from Star Trek are from the 60s, locked into a single established genre and franchise that still has yet to reach public domain; they are VERY specific. Outside of fanworks, they are not as open to interpretation or use, and unrecognizable to anyone unfamiliar with their particular origin works. Tolkien may have popularized a certain depiction of elves for the modern age, but everyone has heard of "elves" even if you call them something else.
Elves in folklore and mythology and stories have been around far longer than the tenth century, that's not even an argument.
However, no single pre-Tolkien concept of Elves were adapted 1:1 by Tolkien to create the Tolkien Elves as we know them in his stories. He took inspiration from a variety of cultures' stories and histories to create his Elves. The Elves in Tolkien's works very plainly are not just Elves from Folklore. Tolkien's Elves are not the Norse Álfar or the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann.
They are his own creation, extremely hashed characters that he invented, with inspiration from varied folklore and mythologies.
Many of the Elves we see in fiction since Tolkien—the Elves which I am specifically criticizing—are not unique inventions by authors who have spent painstaking time exploring and adapting folklore and mythology—but are in fact based solely on Tolkien's Elves.
If the Elves and the story you're thinking of don't fit this criticism, the post isn't about them.
I think it's missing the point to say there is a certain kind of Stock Fantasy Elf that "everyone has heard of" that is disconnected from this criticism, because if I asked to see an example of the Stock Fantasy Elf, 9 out of 10 times, it will have far more in common with Tolkien's Elves than any of the preexisting stories that Tolkien was inspired by.
The point of my post is that I'm criticizing the entire concept of the Stock Fantasy Elf that everyone is expected to know.
And even if we do accept the Stock Fantasy Elf and its presence in a story, I don't think it's an excuse to forego developing them as a People if they play a big role in the story.
We might say that everyone has heard of Vampires. Anyone reading a Vampire book is likely familiar with the concept of a Vampire and genre staples & tropes. Yet I still expect a Vampire book to specify a few details about its Vampires specifically, for the sake of the story. Otherwise should I simply assume these are Dracula Vampires (another story that took inspiration from Folklore that later became the rule)? Or are they Vampires from Fright Night? Anne Rice? Can they go out in the sun? Some can. The story needs to tell me.
I'm just saying that if your story has Elves, the story should define what an Elf is.
My point, all said, is that we can't rely on preexisting & wholly unrelated works, nor genre knowledge, to do all of the story telling. Some, perhaps, but not all.
Yes! This is what I'm saying.
It's not wrong to take inspiration from other stories! But I should be able to engage in your original, unique story set in your original, unique world without having read a completely unrelated book that came out 50+ years prior, unless it's a fan work that explicitly engages with that prior story. (Usually! There are exceptions)
Put Elves in your story, fine. But tell me what an Elf is!
